Since 2001, the United Nations declared November 6^th as the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict.

The UN reported that war is on the rise since 2012 and it is unfolding in over 120 armed conflicts around the world, involving over 60 states and 120 non-state armed groups.  Peace-making is in crisis and diplomatic efforts to end fighting are failing with more leaders pursuing aggressive military action and getting away with it.  More people are being forced from their homes and in need of lifesaving aid or dying in armed conflict around the globe.

Worldwide, the daily news report on horrific war casualties focused on the wounded and dead soldiers and civilians, traumatised children, destroyed cities and livelihoods around the globe, but the news rarely cover the environment as ‘a victim of war’ with crops torched, soil poisoned, water wells polluted, animals killed, and forests cut down to gain military advantage.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), times of war can result in rapid environmental degradation as people struggle to survive and environmental management systems break down resulting in damage to critical ecosystems. For over 6 decades, armed conflicts posed critical threats to conservation efforts as they expanded to more than two-thirds of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. At least 40 percent of all internal conflicts have been linked to the exploitation of natural resources with high-value such as timber, diamonds, gold and oil, or scarce resources such as fertile land and water. Conflicts involving natural resources have also been found to be twice as likely to relapse.

The UN attaches great importance in ensuring that action on the environment is part of conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding strategies, because there can be no durable peace if the natural resources that sustain livelihoods and ecosystems are destroyed. Climate change is clearly an environmental challenge that profoundly affect people with lives lost, livelihoods destroyed, and communities displaced; and it also disrupt peace and security. Countries that are most vulnerable to climate change are often those that are most vulnerable to conflict and fragility. 

THE HIDDEN CARBON COST OF WAR

The tragedy and destruction of war may impact a territory, but its escalating carbon emissions will impact everyone’s climate worldwide.

Russia invaded Ukraine on the 24^th of Feb. 2022. An international effort to hold Russia accountable for the climate impact of its invasion in Ukraine is known as the ‘Initiative on GHG Accounting of War’. Seven experts in four countries produce two reports a year that influence decision-making by the Ukrainian government and international organizations.

– This includes the efforts of a team led by Lennard de Klerk, a 50-year-old Dutch carbon expert-turned-hotelier who owns an ecolodge in Hungary’s countryside, and former colleagues who are working to compute emissions from all types of war-triggered emissions. They collect reports of Russian attacks and then verifies them using open-source satellite images delineating burnt areas to appraise the carbon emissions of hostilities-related wildfires. They closely track reports of fuel shipments to areas nearing the frontlines since military tanks and fighter jet vehicles are big fuel-guzzlers. They track fires set off by explosives, the fuel consumed by tanks and armored vehicles, and the tailpipe pollution from cars driven by Ukrainians fleeing their homes.

– The first report presented in 2022 revealed at least 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in direct, indirect and prospective reconstruction-related emissions for the first seven months of the war, a figure equivalent to the Netherlands’ entire emissions over the same period. A  second report of the war’s first 12 months updated the figure to 120 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

The Israeli war in Gaza since the 7th of October 2023 is the latest in seven decades of war and conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, with severe humanitarian impact and alarming environmental destruction. Decades of military occupation and conflict have degraded Gaza’s resources. Deforestation for buffer zones has worsened environmental degradation. 90- 95% of the water is undrinkable rendered by blockades and recurring
violence.

– The study, titled “A Multitemporal Snapshot of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Israel-Gaza Conflict” estimates that the total emissions of direct war activities (bombing raids, reconnaissance flights, and rocket attacks) in the first 120 days of the conflict to be between 420,265 and 652,552 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e).

– To date, it is estimated that the rebuilding of Gaza could release more than 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MILITARY EMISSIONS

Nations disclose their national emissions and commit to cutting them under the 2015 Paris Agreement adopted by 196 parties at COP21, but with the exception of emissions from military activities which allow for limited data reporting. The Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty adopted in 1997 aimed to reduce the emission of gases that contribute to global warming, carved out reporting exemptions that cover large portions of military emissions abroad, and that loophole remains, explains Axel Michaelowa, a senior researcher at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

According to estimates by two U.K. based nonprofits – Scientists for Global Responsibility and the Conflict and Environment Observatory – the direct and indirect emissions of militaries might account for 5.5 percent of total global emissions, which is the annual emissions of the world’s entire fleet of passenger cars.

As an institution, the US military is the world’s largest energy user of fossil fuel, therefore it is also the world’s largest carbon emitter, with 30 percent from bases across the world and 70 percent from operations.

“The global military expenditure has now exceeded 2.1 trillion with the Russian war in Ukraine and the Israeli war in Gaza and Lebanon giving it an extra boost. Every time military expenditure increases, military emissions increases”, explained Nick Buxton, author and researcher from Amsterdam based Transnational Institute.

The big question: Who will take responsibility for military emissions resulting from war and armed conflict and the emissions to rebuild devastated territories?